The present invention relates generally to quality of service monitoring, and in particular to methods and systems for monitoring reliably the quality of service based on reputation information.
An increasing fraction of a modern economy consists of services. Services are generally provided under a contract that fixes the type and quality of the service to be provided as well as penalties if these are not met. We call such a contract a Service Level Agreement (hereinafter to as “SLA”). For example, an airline provides as a service the transportation of a passenger within certain time constraints and may incur certain penalties if this service is not delivered. Another example is providing a communication service where a certain availability and capacity is guaranteed and penalties may be incurred if these guaranteed services are not reached. Yet another example is the provisioning of computation or data management services through a network, where a certain efficiency and capacity is guaranteed in an agreement and penalties may be incurred if these guaranteed services are not reached.
An essential requirement for such service provisioning is to be able to monitor the quality of service that was actually delivered. As the monetary value of individual services decreases, the cost of providing accurate monitoring takes up an increasing share of the cost of providing the service itself. For example, with current technology, reliably monitoring the quality of a communication service requires constant communication with a neutral third party and would be almost as costly as providing the service itself. The cost of this monitoring remains a major obstacle to wider adoption of a service-oriented economy.